1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to exercise devices in general that utilize fixed resistance elements to provide a controlled resistance to the body's movements. More particularly, the present invention relates to exercise devices capable of exercising the leg abductor, upper arm and postural muscle groups of a person depending upon the orientation of the person with respect to the exercise device.
2. Prior Art Statement
In the fundamental sense, exercise is required for the good health of all people. For athletes, exercise that conditions the athlete's body for the sport in which he or she competes is required in order to excel at that sport. For body builders and those who want to improve the appearance of their bodies, exercise provides a means to build muscle mass and strength, reduce fat and otherwise tone desired muscle groups. Furthermore, exercise is also necessary in many types of rehabilitation programs for people recovering from illness, injury, surgery and the like. As a result of the multitude of people who utilize exercise devices and the variety of reasons for their use, the prior art is replete with prior art patents that address exercise devices for most every type of person and for most every major muscle group in the body.
Typically, exercise devices work by providing some type of resistance to the various body movements. By working a desired muscle group against the resistance of the exercise device, that muscle group can be conditioned. For instance, one of the simplest forms of exercise devices is the free weight. Free weights are typically gripped by a person's hands or attached to various parts of the body, such as the ankles or wrists, whereby the presence of the weights provides resistance to various movements of the body against the direction of gravity. Thus, by repeatedly making such movements, the muscle groups that move the free weights against gravity are conditioned.
Obviously not all muscle groups can be effectively conditioned by the use of free weights. For many muscle groups, it is not practical to attach free weights to the body in order to effect those muscle groups. Furthermore, many muscle groups in the body require a significant amount of resistance to efficiently condition those muscle groups. In order to provide such resistance, a large mass of free weights would have to be used, wherein the weights would be large, bulky, hard to adjust in weight and potentially dangerous should the weights fall or be dropped.
The prior art has addressed the problems associated with free weights by the development of exercise machines where resistance is applied to the body by a secondary mechanism rather than directly by the free weights. Such prior art exercise machines typically provide resistance to a person in one of two ways, those ways being the use of framed weights or the use of resistance elements such as springs, elastic members, pneumatic cylinders and the like. Prior art exercise machines that utilize framed weights typically have a number of weights that are safely contained within a larger machine. The machine has various handles, bars or the like, rather than the weights themselves, that are actually engaged by the person exercising. The handles, bars or the like engaged by the person exercising are mechanically interconnected to the framed weights in some manner. This keeps the person exercising away from the moving weights, thereby providing a device that is safer and more versatile than free weights. As such, as a person manipulates the various handles, bars and the like, the framed weights provide resistance to such manipulations. The amount of resistance provided in such an exercise device is controlled by varying the number of framed weights that are actually moved when the various handles, bars and the like are moved. Such a prior art exercise device is exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,478,411 to Baldwin, entitled APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR EXERCISING THE ABDUCTOR OR ADDUCTOR MUSCLES.
A common problem with framed weight exercise machines is that because of the mass of the weights, the frame to support the weights and the mechanical mechanisms to move the weights, such devices are typically very large, difficult to adjust to an individual's size and needs, are very expensive and are difficult to move from place to place.
In an attempt to reduce the size, cost and complexity of framed weight exercise devices, the prior art has seen the development of exercise devices that utilize resistance elements in place of framed weights. The resistance elements commonly used include pneumatic and hydraulic cylinders, springs, elastic members, frictional couplings, electromagnetic devices and the like. In such exercise devices, the degree of resistance provided by the resistance element is controlled by the number of the resistance elements used, the location of the resistance elements and/or the intensity of a secondary force, i.e. friction, electromagnetism or the like. For example, many prior art exercise devices use elastic members that join parts within the device. The elastic members resist the movement of the parts away from one another and provide the needed resistance to condition muscles. To increase or decrease resistance, the number of elastic members or the size of elastic members is changed. In other exercise devices that use springs, hydraulic cylinders or pneumatic cylinders, it is commonly the position of the resistance element that controls the resistance provided by that resistor element. As a result, many such exercise devices include some mechanism that allows for the positional adjustment of the resistance elements relative the moving elements of the exercise device. For an example of such an exercise device, see the low-impact climber exercise device, model 725e, sold commercially by PRECORE.RTM. U.S.A. The PRECORE.RTM. climbing machine provides resistance through the use of pneumatic cylinders. The angle of the pneumatic cylinders can be adjusted between the moving step and the stationary base, thereby varying the resistance provided by the cylinders.
In prior art exercise devices that use secondary forces such as friction or electromagnetism to create resistance, the secondary force is simply increased or decreased to adjust the resistance provided by the exercise device. For an example of such a device, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,099 entitled EXERCISE MACHINE. See specifically FIG. 17 for a leg abductor exercising machine embodiment.
Although prior art exercise machines that use resistance elements are generally less expensive and smaller than framed weight exercise machines, resistance element exercise machines are still typically bulky and large because they are commonly required to support the body of the person exercising. This generalization is even more prevalent in exercise machines designed to exercise multiple muscle groups. Since the exercise device is designed to exercise different parts of a person's body, the exercise device commonly supports a person's body in the proper position to conduct the different exercises. Typically, exercise devices that are designed to exercise different muscle groups include separate resistance elements for each of the muscle groups and include different engagement surfaces for different parts of the body, for instance the arms and legs. The use of different resistance elements and different engagement surfaces adds significantly to the cost, size and bulk of the exercise device.
Exercise machines that are capable of exercising multiple muscle groups commonly concentrate on one section of a person's body. For example, there are prior art exercising machines that exercise the various muscle groups in just the upper body, the legs or the stomach/mid-torso region. There are, however, very complicated exercise machines that exercise muscle groups across the entire body. However, such exercise machines tend to concentrate only on a half dozen or so of the major muscle groups. Such exercise devices are often very complicated and require complex routine maintenance. These prior art exercise devices also are very expensive and usually come in only one standard size. As a result, all people regardless of their stature are required to utilize a single sized device. This leads to the prior art exercise devices being too large for some people, too small for others and generally an uncomfortable compromise for most. Furthermore, prior art exercise machines tend to be designed to be neutral with regard to the gender of the person intended to use the machine. There are of course exercise devices for pregnant women and devices traditionally used mainly by women such as devices designed to tone thigh muscles. However, these exercise devices are conventionally single exercise devices. Very few exercise devices provide exercises for multiple muscle groups wherein the multiple muscle groups are chosen to be gender specific. For instance, many women, because of their physiology, have a higher risk than men for developing osteoporosis. Similarly, women tend to gain weight in the hips and thighs as opposed to men who tend to gain weight around the waistline. There therefore exists a need in the field of exercise devices to provide a piece of exercise equipment that is concerned with the health requirements and concerns of a specific gender and provides multiple exercises that address these health concerns.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an exercise device that provides multiple exercises that are specific to the health concerns commonly associated with a specific gender.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such an exercise device that is compact, lightweight and inexpensive to manufacture.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide such an exercise device that can be custom assembled to a person's body size and requires little, if any, maintenance to maintain the operation of the exercise device.